ack, but
there seems to have been some difficulty in determining which was the
front and which the flank. In fact, it was only by trying that one
could know. General White with his staff had arrived from Ladysmith,
but refused to take the command out of French's hands. It is typical of
White's chivalrous spirit that within ten days he refused to identify
himself with a victory when it was within his right to do so, and took
the whole responsibility for a disaster at which he was not present.
Now he rode amid the shells and watched the able dispositions of his
lieutenant.

About half-past three the action had fairly begun. In front of the
advancing British there lay a rolling hill, topped by a further one. The
lower hill was not defended, and the infantry, breaking from column of
companies into open order, advanced over it. Beyond was a broad grassy
valley which led up to the main position, a long kopje flanked by a
small sugar-loaf one Behind the green slope which led to the ridge of
death an ominous and terrible cloud was driving up, casting its black
shadow over the combatants. There was the stillness which goes before
some great convulsion of nature. The men pressed on in silence, the soft
thudding of their feet and the rattle of their sidearms filling the air
with a low and continuous murmur. An additional solemnity was given to
the attack by that huge black cloud which hung before them.

The British guns had opened at a range of 4400 yards, and now against
the swarthy background there came the quick smokeless twinkle of the
Boer reply. It was an unequal fight, but gallantly sustained. A shot and
another to find the range; then a wreath of smoke from a bursting
shell exactly where the guns had been, followed by another and another.
Overmatched, the two Boer pieces relapsed into a sulky silence,
broken now and again by short spurts of frenzied activity. The British
batteries turned their attention away from them, and began to search the
ridge with shrapnel and prepare the way for the advancing infantry.

The scheme was that the Devonshires should hold the enemy in front while
the main attack from the left flank was carried out by the Gordons,
the Manchesters, and the Imperial Light Horse. The words 'front' and
'flank,' however, cease to have any meaning with so mobile and elastic
a force, and the attack which was intended to come from the left became
really a frontal one, while the Devons found themselves upon the